They Called 19-Year-Old Abigail a Liar and a Harlot—Then the Feared Mountain Man Walked In and Said, “That Child Is Mine.”

Chapter 5

The reverend reached inside his coat, and Billy suddenly shouted, “Don’t!” and everyone turned, but the reverend pulled out a small book, his church ledger, and he began to explain how he had written down every payment that Mayor Hastings had made to the church after that night. Billy lunged at him, but Morgan caught him by the throat of his coat and threw him into the snow, and the reverend continued, saying the donations were too large, far too large for a church of their size, and then he had discovered something else, that those donations had come from town funds. Silas stepped closer and asked how he knew, and the reverend said it was because he had found the mayor’s duplicate account book, and he removed several folded pages from his coat, and Billy stopped struggling.

And for the first time, Abigail understood that the scandal surrounding her pregnancy had never been the largest secret in Bitter Creek, that it had merely been the one the Hastings family needed everyone to look at while they were robbing the town blind. The mayor had been stealing from land taxes and relief funds and railroad money and even the donations meant for families who had lost their homes during the previous winter, and Billy’s attack on Abigail had created another danger, a witness, a young woman from a respected family who might expose the mayor’s son and destroy the family’s political control over the town. Morgan looked at Reverend Preston and asked why he had come now, and the reverend swallowed and said that the day before, Mayor Hastings had come to his church and told him that eight men were going into the mountains.

“He said Morgan would be killed,” Reverend Preston continued, his voice shaking, “and he said Abigail would probably not survive the crossfire.” Morgan’s face became terrifyingly calm, and Abigail stared at Billy, and Billy stared at the ground, and nobody answered her question because they did not need to, the truth was written in his guilty silence. Her father stepped forward and said, “I rode all night,” and Abigail looked at him, not with forgiveness, not yet, perhaps not for a very long time, but for the first time she saw something in Reverend Preston that had been completely absent inside the church, and it was courage, late and cowardly late, but real. Morgan took the ledger and said, “We leave for Fort Bridger today,” and the reverend nodded, and Billy laughed and told them they would never make it.

When Morgan asked why, Billy’s smile returned, because suddenly he knew something they did not, and he said, “My father already knows.” Silas frowned and asked what the mayor knew, and Billy said, “That the reverend stole those books,” and the color left Reverend Preston’s face. “My father isn’t waiting in Bitter Creek,” Billy said slowly, standing up, and Morgan tightened his grip on the rifle and asked where he was, and Billy looked directly at Abigail and said, “He’s coming here.” A distant boom rolled through the mountains, and Morgan spun toward the valley because the sky was clear and it was not thunder, and another boom came, and then another, and snow shifted on the upper ridge.

Morgan’s eyes widened. “Everyone move!” he shouted, and a low roar began above them, and Abigail looked up and saw that the entire white mountainside was moving. Billy had not come merely with guns, because charges had been planted along the ridge, and now an avalanche the size of a cathedral was descending straight toward Morgan’s cabin.

For one frozen second nobody moved, and then Morgan roared for them to run, and the mountain answered with a sound like the sky splitting open, and snow exploded from the ridge above them and pine trees vanished beneath the advancing white wall while horses screamed and men scattered in every direction. Morgan grabbed Abigail around the waist and shouted that they had to reach the tunnel, and when she cried out about the others, he said, “They follow us or they die!” and Silas understood first and shouted for everybody to get inside, and Billy tried to run downhill but Morgan caught the back of his coat and dragged him toward the door, telling him that if he knew another way out he was welcome to take it, and Billy stopped struggling.

Within seconds eleven people crowded inside the cabin, Abigail and Morgan, Reverend Preston, Billy, Elias Crowe, Silas, and the other riders, and the building shook around them as cups fell from shelves and the roar became almost unbearable. Morgan tore back the rug and opened the trapdoor and told Abigail to go first, and she stared into the darkness and said his name, and he said, “Go!” and she climbed down, and the reverend followed, and one by one the others entered while Morgan remained above, looking around the cabin he had built with his own hands. He saw the table and the iron stove and the bed Abigail had slept in and the tiny wooden cradle he had carved and hidden beneath a blanket because he had been too embarrassed for her to see it unfinished, and then he heard wood cracking outside, and he dropped through the opening and pulled the trapdoor shut behind him.

Three seconds later the avalanche hit, and the earth convulsed and Abigail screamed and Morgan threw himself over her as the tunnel filled with dust and something enormous crashed overhead, and then there was darkness, absolute darkness, and for several moments Abigail could hear only breathing, her own and Morgan’s and men coughing and someone praying. Then Billy laughed, a broken, hysterical laugh, and said, “My father will bury all of us,” and Morgan’s voice came out of the dark and said, “Not if you keep talking,” and the laugh stopped. They crawled, eleven people moving through a tunnel that had been designed for one man, and behind them the cabin groaned beneath tons of snow, and ahead a faint gray light eventually appeared, and Morgan pushed open the hidden exit behind the woodpile.

Snow had partially buried it, but not completely, and he dug upward with his bare hands until cold air rushed inside, and one by one they emerged into the daylight to find that the cabin was gone. Where it had stood was now a vast broken field of snow and timber and shattered trees, and Abigail stared at the wreckage of everything she had known for months, her blankets and her books and the small cup Morgan always placed beside her bed and the cradle, and she thought about how much he had lost. Morgan stood beside her with his expression revealing nothing, but Abigail knew him now, and she knew that cabin had been more than shelter, it had been the only home he had trusted since childhood, and she slipped her hand into his. Morgan looked down at her and asked if she was all right, and she said no, and he nodded and said, “Me neither,” and that was the closest Morgan Montgomery ever came to admitting heartbreak.